Wow it’s been a long time.
February 20th 2010 12:37 am by Matt
…
Digg
reddit
Updated: 03/11/10 09:00 am
New shit online
Latest Comments
Latest Forum Posts
Soon
New shit on epalla
20
Feb
22
Jan
2012 (2009)
January 22nd 2010 1:27 am by Matt
Starring
John Cusack, Amanda Peet
In Brief
John Cusack, a struggling writer, attempts to flee the impending global mega-crisis and gain back the love of his estranged ex-wife and children. Meanwhile, a scientist battles the moral dilemna of being ’saved’ in massive, secretly constructed ‘arcs’ while others are consciously left to die.
The Beef
This movie is really not too bad when all you’re expected to do is stare in wide-eyed wonder at giant monuments exploding and California sliding into the Pacific Ocean. Unfortunately the film is saturated with terrible and half-hearted efforts at generating some emotional attachment to its doomed characters. It’s almost like the entire movie with splendid mayhem was created, then someone came back and tried to make it appeal to women by adding some scenes to tug at your heart strings. Half-assed story additions would also explain the sheer length of this behemoth (that’s what she said).
I wasn’t expecting good science, so I won’t hold that against it, but let’s just say it’s worse than Independence Day, but better than The Core in that department. This is a bad movie, but you knew that going in. I’m still going to say it’s worth your time to see it – but only for the effects. If you want to have a good time – try to count the number of times Cusack and company outrun a natural disaster. Also – try to enjoy the irony of a bunch of boats loaded with whities storming Africa at the end.
Oh, and who told Cusack he could do an action flick? Let’s stick with the rom-coms, Johnny.
2/5 (Bad)
13
Jan
I like this song way too much
January 13th 2010 11:10 am by Matt
Can’t get this crap out of my head, damnit.
10
Jan
I started watching Matrix Reloaded…
January 10th 2010 10:49 pm by Matt
… and then I stopped it and turned on Mighty Ducks. I don’t know why I thought it might be a good idea to try that again. I think every other year or so I need a quick reminder of how shitty that movie really is.
29
Dec
Avatar (2009) and 3D-O-Vision
December 29th 2009 11:58 pm by Matt
Starring
Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver
In Brief
In 2152, humans are mining the elusive ore “unobtanium” from the faraway planet, Pandora. Unfortunately, the resident Na’Vi, who have a spiritual and cultural link to all the life on the planet, live atop the largest deposits. The miners turn to a paraplegic marine, Jake Sulley, and the Avatar program, which uses a remote link to control living Na’Vi bodies to gain the trust of the indigenous population. But once Sulley goes in, he doesn’t want to go back.
The Beef
Do you think they’re trying to tell us something? The undertones in this movie aren’t so much “under” as “in-your-face”. It’s all one giant reflection of the displacement of Native Americans and, to a lesser extent, war in the middle east. It honestly makes me wonder whether they actually wrote the story first or just kept tweaking history until they got something cool.
Still – the end result is hard to argue with. James Cameron’s face is in the dictionary next to the word “Epic”. I can’t think of any movies off the top of my head that match this in the sheer scale of the undertaking. The entire world is animated, and animated well. It’s beautiful and foreign and fascinating. Without a plot the movie could survive on its splendor alone, but it does have a plot. It works too. Sure it’s familiar and predictable, but it’s engaging and fun to watch too.
Unfortunately the characters weaved into this story aren’t particularly likable though. They’re all dramatizations, like they were lifted from the pages of a comic book. The shrewd businessman, the “kill-em-all” general and his goons, the die-hard passionate scientist, and so on and so forth. Despite quite a lot of screen time, none of them really generate any particular depth. The story is engaging and the visuals stunning enough that it carried me through the insane 162 minute runtime, but on pure movie credentials alone I can’t put this movie up with the ratings it’s getting elsewhere.
See it, for sure, and do your best to see it in a great big Digital or IMAX theater, because the visuals will blow you away. Just don’t expect the rest of the movie to keep up.
4/5 (Good)
3D-O-Vision
Avatar was also the first recent movie I’ve seen in 3D, and I was a little apprehensive. My experience until this has been that directors use it to make things shoot out at you in obnoxious and distracting ways, but not to add any depth to the picture itself. Nothing is further from the truth in Avatar. I think there are only one or two instances where something truly jumps out at you – the effect is instead used to great effect in slow panning shots of the amazing world that Cameron has created.
Still – I never quite felt like everything was in focus when it was in 3D, and quicker shots blurred and made focusing even more difficult. I think 3D has a lot of potential, and I’m no longer as pessimistic about it as I was, but I don’t think the technology is at the point yet where it’s something that adds more to the film than it detracts.
I hope they keep working on it, because I see a lot of potential in what they can do with this.
25
Dec
22
Dec
jQuery Validation with multiple (mostly) identical forms
December 22nd 2009 4:16 pm by Matt
I came across an issue today with jQuery with multiple forms. I’ve got a page that’s dynamically generating possibly several dozen mostly identical forms on a single page. “Why would you do that?” you might ask. Well, imagine a data set where I want to be able to edit each row independently and you’ve got an idea of what I’m doing. I know it’s not pretty, but it’s definitely an easy and straight forward way to do this. Here’s an example of a typical form that I might have 15 of in this script:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 | <form action="/form/process" method="post" class="question_form"> <label for="questiont">Question:</label> <input class="required" type="text" name="question" /> <br /> <label for="answer">Answer:</label> <input class="required" type="text" name="answer" /> <br /> <input type="submit" value="Submit!" /> </form> |
So, you’d think the logical thing to do for quickly running validation on all these forms would be:
1 2 3 | $(document).ready(function() { $(".question_form").validate(); }); |
Unfortunately, because the form fields shared the same name, the validation plugin hiccuped with this solution. Now I’m using custom error classes and rules in my actual implementation, so maybe this problem is more specific and isn’t reproduced quite this easily – but basically what happens is that if you have 10 “Question” forms, the validation plugin will see the “Question” field on the first form and call it good. Obviously, we can’t have that, we want each form validating separately.
The solution? Use the each selector to iterate through the forms, of course:
1 2 3 4 5 | $(document).ready(function() { $(".question_form").each(function() { $(this).validate(); }); }); |
voila! Easy, but I want to remember it for later 
19
Dec
MMM: Miss March (2009)
December 19th 2009 1:20 am by Matt
Starring
Nobody
In Brief
A high school abstinence speaker agrees to finally have sex with his girlfriend, but falls into a coma before he gets the chance. When wakes up 4 years later he discovers that his former girlfriend is a playboy playmate and sets off across the country to find her.
The Beef
The most painful biking I’ve done in a long time. I wouldn’t have finished the movie if I weren’t stuck on a bike waiting for my 45 minutes to be up (twice). I expected it to be bad, but I was hoping I’d at least get some good boobs out of it. But no. I would rather spend 90 minutes stabbing myself with cutlery than watching this movie again.
1/5 (Awful)
Weigh In
212 lbs.
16
Dec
MMM: Bandslam (2009)
December 16th 2009 3:44 pm by Matt
Starring
Alyson Michalka, Vanessa Hudgens, Gaelan Connell
In Brief
A high school outsider and music junkie moves to a new school overcome with Bandslam, a high school battle of the bands competition. He forms an unlikely bond with the former head cheerleader. Impressed with his musical knowledge, she makes him the manager of her band, which he quickly reshapes to compete for the glory of Bandslam.
The Beef
Lately a lot of disney and teen romp movies are leading with some awkward looking guys. I guess the idea is that it makes them easier to relate to. Michael Cera is an excellent example of what I’m talking about. Unfortunately, the guys casting Bandslam decided it wasn’t enough to find a skinny, awkward kid for their lead. No, they wanted the lead to be legitimately ugly – extra easy to relate to. To be fair, Gaelan Connell is really a pretty normal looking little geek. They put in effort to make him as ugly as possible. Just look at him in the poster up there. What the hell?
But I just wanted the little fucker to cut his hair and stop intentionally acting like a spazz for the entire movie. His ugliness actually had the reverse effect of making him difficult to relate to. He also dances like a queer bomb and is generally a goofy little fucker, and it bothered me.
The writers also fall into the same pattern of portraying teenage bullying as if it’s widely considered the ‘cool’ thing to do. They even show the entire school making fun of a kid because his dad drove drunk and was in a fatal accident. Seriously Todd Graff? You think teenagers would make fun of someone for that? What the fuck is wrong with you?
Other than that: the music is ok, but nothing special; Vanessa Hudgens is hot, but acts badly; The plot is predictable, but you knew it would be. An ok effort makes an OK movie. What a shocker.
3/5 (Ok)
Weigh In
213 lbs.
11
Dec
MMM: Taking Woodstock (2009)
December 11th 2009 11:16 am by Matt
Starring
Demetri Martin, Henry Goodman, Edward Hibbert, Imelda Staunton
In Brief
I’m not sure entirely how true this story is – but it centers around a young Elliot Tiber, a struggling young interior designer doing his best to save his parent’s dilapidated motel in White Lake, NY and to figure out how to come out to his parents. When Elliot hears that the permits for the Woodstock festival have been pulled by the town of Woodstock, he extends an offer to the organizers. The infamous Michael Lang and company assemble and woodstock lives… in White Lake, NY.
The Beef
This movie hasn’t been reviewed well. I think the problem is not the movie or story itself, but in people’s expectations for the story they’re going to see. This is NOT the story of Woodstock. If you want to see that, you should shoot for the 1970s Original. This is the story of Elliot Tiber, the young man who brought Woodstock to White Lake. Indeed, you don’t even see much (re: any) music in this movie.
For a lot, I’m sure their expectations about which story they were coming to see have tainted the movie. But I think Ang Lee resisted the temptation to move the focus away from Elliot and towards Woodstock as a whole. This movie is an enjoyable coming-of-age story with a much lighter tone than most of Lee’s films. I have a tough time characterizing it as a Comedy, as it’s been billed, but it was a good film none-the-less. I think this movie effectively uses the backdrop of Woodstock to strike an odd balance – managing to survive in the no-man’s land of films that aren’t funny enough to be comedies, but are too light for the story to carry them as dramas.
4/5 (Good)
Weigh In
213 lbs.
Search
-
Other Stuff